(For those of you who don’t know, who for some reason have internet but don’t check news or Facebook or twitter and hang out with people who don’t check news or FB or twitter, Haiti, the poorest nation in the Western hemisphere, had an earthquake with catastrophic consequences this week).

I have been watching the images from Haiti, aghast and speechless with horror and heartbreak. For every person rescued, many others are languishing and dying under the rubble of concrete buildings. I wept last night as I ran while watching television when a man ran up to CNN’s Dr. Sanjay Gupta with his 15-day old daughter who had a severe head laceration. His wife, the child’s mother had died in the earthquake, that child was all he head left. Every news report is accompanied by the wailing of mourners in the background.

Our fellow human beings are being subjected to suffering, and we need to not only send prayers but actual help, just as we did for Hurricane Katrina. The vast majority of us are unqualified to help, and so we *must* send money. We all have something to give, even if money is tight. Instead of dining out, send that money to aid organizations. Instead of buying that dress, send the money to aid organizations.

It’s as easy as texting “HAITI” to “90999,” which will contribute $10 to the Red Cross that will be charged to your cellphone.

My friend is putting together a bakesale for Haiti on Saturday January 23rd, from 10am-2pm, in various locations throughout Oakland, Berkeley, and San Francisco (Pizzaiolo in Oakland, Gioia’s Pizza in Berkeley, and Bi-Rite Market in San Francisco). Spread the word. There is more than one way to send money to Haiti–you can buy a cupcake and benefit Haiti, too.

There’s been this strange economizing thing that’s come over me in the past few weeks – since my return from London, I suspect. I actually have found that the mantra my mate Marie used, “Credit crunch – packed lunch!” seems to have gotten stuck into my conciousness and the result is that rather than popping out for something to eat at lunchtime, I’ve been scouring my cupboards in the morning.

Trying to discover what strange and odd bits and pieces I can cobble together into something resembling a meal has become a bit of a daily habit. This particular day, cold yet sunny, I’d just had my organic box delivery with persimmons but I’d not had the opportunity to do much else with the rest of the lot. Leftover heels of bread from my weekly bake (another credit-crunch-worthy endeavour – keeps better and tastes far superior to any regular old plastic bagged loaf) with a tin of bargain-priced sardines in a mustard sauce. Quick toast of the bread, remove the spines from the fish, a quick mash on toast with a sprinkle of salt and pepper and lunch is had.

Quick note on the sardines… I never NEVER in my life suspected that I might be one of those people who actually willingly eat these little guys. I’d hated the thought of eating them – to me they were simply a treat for the cat! Until I moved overseas and my friend showed me the error of my ways. Remove the spines if you must, as I do, and the texture is simply lovely. Light and without any of the suspected fishy smell or overtly sea-like undertones. Its actually quite mild, a bit like tuna in that respect. If you’re a lady, you may decide that crunching the bones is a good source of calcium but I cannot in any good conscience recommend it. Oh, and a good Gourmet magazine to read is always a welcome companion.

Warning: This post may induce clogged arteries.
While I find it doubtful that some people have never heard of fried green tomatoes thanks to the novel and movie, I do find that lots of people have never had them. And that, dearhearts, is a crying shame.

When I was about ten years old, my next door neighbor showed me how to make fried green tomatoes. (Yes, it was around the time when the movie first came out.) She was my grandmother’s best friend, and she was from Kentucky, and I thought she was the best cook in the world for quite some time. I don’t think I’d ever even considered that a tomato could be something other than red, or that you could fry it. When she and I went into the kitchen and dusted her fresh-from-the-garden unripe tomatoes with cornmeal, I thought that this might possibly be the coolest thing I’d ever done. They tasted like potato chips, but better, and I could have eaten them every day.

We made them once or twice after that, but she moved and I grew older and since we didn’t grow our own tomatoes, we didn’t have green ones. And, up until I moved and started going to a farmer’s market regularly, I didn’t see them for almost a decade. One morning, I walked past a wooden box of green tomatoes, shiny and hard as rocks; I bought four praying I remembered the recipe. I searched online, and found recipes that baked them (they aren’t “baked” green tomatoes) and coated them with breadcrumbs (what??) or panko (hell no!). So I played around with what I could remember.

They’ve gotten to be more popular fare at both soul food hole-in-the-walls and at upscale places like Georgia Brown’s in Washington, D.C.. A few years back I realized that a bistro around the corner from me served fried green tomato BLTs, and I started going to that place more regularly. Continue reading →

The Edible Schoolyard, an Alice Waters landmark of gardening and good eats in Berkeley, is holding its annual spring plant sale. I noticed this sign while picking up pizzas at Gioia’s yesterday–I’m tempted to go there and pick up some more vegetables to plant–maybe you’ll be tempted, too?

But for now, reading about using herbs, fresh from the garden, has to suffice: for example, Pinch My Salt’s herbed tuna salad post makes me salivate, as I watch my garden grow.

What do I have planned? I’m thinking herb tempura with the Korean perilla leaves! Pesto with the basil! Soup with the sour garden sorrel. Kimchi with the Korean radish. North Korean eggplant stew with the Korean eggplant. Oodles of possibilities with my fines herbes, and nibbling on lavash and tarragon sandwiches. Eating carrots fresh out of the earth, raw and sweet. Tea with the chamomile, tea with the mint! And maybe mojitos with the mint! Infused cocktails with the anise hyssop. Chicken soup with dill. Yogurt with dill.

I actually take of sort of sick pleasure in organizing the fridge, but my husband’s been out of town, and we had a Cinco de Mayo fiesta last weekend so I’m rocking a bachelor fridge – booze and condiments!

Normally, I do all my grocery shopping on Saturdays (farmer’s market, butcher, fishmonger, bakery, etc.) but didn’t go the past three Saturdays. (I’ve kept some of my greens, especially the herbs, fresh by standing them upright in water in a glass container, loosely covered with the plastic bag they came in. Trim the stems and change water every few days) However, I constantly tinker with food experiments, hence the fruit pits, the preserved/pickled items, the vodka infusions and the animal fats. Also, I’m actively trying to clear out my freezer (must. finish. ice-cream!), so many of our meals were defrosted the night before; if I were to open it right now, everything would tumble out, which is why you won’t see a picture of it. Tonight, I pulled out my wok and scrambled some egg, sauteed some bok choy and onion, and tossed in some frozen peas, leftover roast duck and green onion with a few squirts of soy sauce, fish sauce and sesame oil to make fried rice. Tomorrow, I’ll probably take some of that defrosted pasta sauce and adapt that penne pasta dish with red pepper flakes, onion, parsley and salt pork from the Babbo cookbook. On Thursday, I’ll complete the vichysoisse by adding cream and chopped chives and accompany it with a hunk of bread (um, no croutons) and a salad.

Maybe when I get back into my normal routine, I’ll take another picture. If you think the contents of my fridge are weird now, wait til you see it when I’m back to “normal”.